Path of Exile: Ascendancy [official site] is the next expansion for the multiplayer Diablike, and among its additions are new 'Ascendancy' classes. Information about those classes is being dribbled out by developers Grinding Gears, and there's a trailer for the Raider below.

An update due Wednesday (19 August) will bring six (6) new flavours of pet to Path of Exile [official site]. They include the fastest tortoise I've ever seen and a well-behaved lemur. Also a pukeko which I didn't know was a real bird until now. I'm mostly posting about this because it let me assess a bunch of digital pets.

Diablo III was pretty disappointing when it arrived, but Blizzard were allowed plenty of time to fix it up into its current pleasant state because many clickfans found themselves distracted by Path of Exile [official site] anyway. Grinding Gear Games have continued to improve their free-to-play action-RPG all the while too, of course. Today (this very minute, if all goes to plan) they launch The…

Where fellow action-RPGs Diablo III and Torchlight exulted in bright colors and a brazen use of particle effects, the free-to-play Path of Exile [official site] took a darker turn, wearing its grime like a king's crown. And it did well that way, honestly. Our very own Adam called it a "smart and content-rich RPG." And said smart and content-rich RPG will see its newest expansion,…

Back when our Adam had a good play of free-to-play click 'em up action-RPG Path of Exile [official site], he called it "a smart and content-rich ARPG", saying "It doesn't rewrite the click-for-loot formula but it does tweak just the right parts to make the repetitious hacking and casting a more involved and intricate experience." Sounds good, that. It's soon to get even more things…

I was one of the first to walk to the Path of Exile but one of the last to submit a complete traveller's guide. Of course, the term 'complete' is meaningless when developers insist on releasing new (free) content for their (free) games. Lonely Planet guide writers don't have this problem - it's not as if a country would suddenly expand its borders to bring…

Path Of Exile has expandamofied. The enormously successful online aRPG has been out of beta since October, with estimates showing approximately 13 billion people are playing at any one time. (These are my estimates, based on my inability to count.) And now there's more of it. Sacrifice Of The Vaal pours in a ton of new content to satisfy hungry, hungry gamers.

I think that's an accurate assessment of the situation. Since going live earlier this year, the free-to-play indie action RPG has gobbled up roughly 4 million registered users. And while accounts don't translate directly to people clicking on things, Grinding Gear Games say that amounts to just over 250,000 daily users. Blimey! I thought it would do well, but that's an incredibly healthy number for…

Path of Exile, aside from being the name of my freelance career thus far, is a free-to-play action-RPG which Adam liked a lot even in its early beta stages. It came out of beta just a few weeks ago, but its developers are already outlining the next four months of post-release patches leading up to the first expansion in March. A video explaining the additions…

After many moons spent slowly but surely grinding in the dank dungeons of development, Path of Exile is finally just about to launch. No more alphas, no more betas, no more gnawing uncertainty. You can just hack and slash 'til your hearts content and monsters' hearts are strewn across the floor. Everybody wins mostly! Better still, developer Grinding Gear has released a teetering demon beast…

The journey along ARPG Path of Exile's beta has been a slippery one. It hasn't been salted, and no-one was around to prune the thorn bushes at the side. Repeated warnings from the Local Council of Blood and a visit from their emissaries, the feared Health & Safety of Ruin, proved ineffective. A meeting was called, in which the Neighbourhood Representatives of Anger unanimously decided…

You might see the oft-maligned specter of F2P hanging over Path of Exile and fear the worst, but you'd be missing out on what's quietly becoming the smartest hack 'n' slash in the business. Between socketable everything (including maps and skills!) and difficulty that's not afraid to eat a bowl of nails and steal its powers, PoE's slowly but surely pushing the needle forward. Which…

Well now, here's a pleasant surprise. Diablo-but-possibly-better ARPG Path of Exile's been trapped deep in the dungeons of closed beta since the year 1483 - occasionally poking its head out for stress test weekends - but now it's finally on the path to real completion. Naturally, then, an open beta's right around the corner, and Grinding Gear's even gone so far as to give it…

The year of the ARPG marches on, cannily disguised as its more enigmatic and unpredictable cousin, the year of the Kickstarter. Diablo III managed to be more exciting as something I was excited about than something that was actually (sort of) on my hard drive, but now that Torchlight 2 actually has a release date and Path of Exile is frequently testing its stress levels…

Weekends are such joyous things - so full of freedom and possibility, and utterly devoid of unpleasant obligations. Unless, of course, you're an unreleased multiplayer videogame. Then your weekends are all about crushing, senses-overwhelming stress. Well, stress tests, anyway. This time around, it's Path of Exile's turn to see whether or not its servers will groan and creak under the weight of the stampeding masses' electronic…